In an advertisement for water filter cartridges, we see a tumbling waterfall. The caption reads, "Like nature, Brita is beautifully simple." What kind of thinking is this? Is nature an objective reality that, in its beautiful simplicity, is unaffected by time, culture, and place? The word _nature _itself: what do we actually mean by it? These are some of the riveting questions examined by Peter Coates as he demonstrates that nature, like us, has a history of its own. Beginning with (...) Roman times, Coates investigates the ideological and material factors that have influenced human perceptions of, attitudes toward, and uses of nature—notably religion and ethics, science, technology, economics, gender, and ethnicity. Nature is seen among its rich panoply of meanings as a physical place, as the collective phenomena of the world, as an essence or principle that informs the workings of the world, as an inspiration and guide for people and a source of authority governing human affairs, and as the conceptual opposite of culture. By examining these aspects of nature, Coates leads us on a spectacular tour of the central intellectual forces of Western civilization. The book is essential reading for those who seek an understanding of the history of ideas and the role of nature in that history. (shrink)

While nanosciences and nanotechnologies appear as new concepts developed at the end of the twentieth century, we show that metallic nanoparticles have already been used since ancient times, in particular as colorant in the glass and ceramic industries. Moreover, a lot of natural nanomaterials are also present in the mineral, vegetal and animal worlds. Nevertheless, the breakthrough of nanotechnology has been permitted in the past few decades by the advent of apparatus allowing the manipulation and observation of the (...) nanoworld. Indeed, nowadays, nanomaterials and nanoparticles are used for many applications in our daily life, such as in the fields of electronics, catalysis, optics, biology, and medicine. This article presents an overview about nanotechnologies, with applications from ancient times till the present. (shrink)

This book redraws the intellectual map and sets the agenda in philosophy for the next fifty or so years. By making the theory of signs the dominant theme in Four Ages of Understanding, John Deely has produced a history of philosophy that is innovative, original, and complete. The first full-scale demonstration of the centrality of the theory of signs to the history of philosophy, Four Ages of Understanding provides a new vantage point from which to review and reinterpret the development (...) of intellectual culture at the threshold of "globalization". Deely examines the whole movement of past developments in the history of philosophy in relation to the emergence of contemporary semiotics as the defining moment of Postmodernism. Beginning traditionally with the Pre-Socratic thinkers of early Greece, Deely gives an account of the development of the notion of signs and of the general philosophical problems and themes which give that notion a context through four ages: Ancient philosophy, covering initial Greek thought; the Latin age, philosophy in European civilization from Augustine in the 4th century to Poinsot in the 17th; the Modern period, beginning with Descartes and Locke; and the Postmodern period, beginning with Charles Sanders Peirce and continuing to the present. Reading the complete history of philosophy in light of the theory of the sign allows Deely to address the work of thinkers never before included in a general history, and in particular to overcome the gap between Ockham and Descartes which has characterized the standard treatments heretofore. One of the essential features of the book is the way in which it shows how the theme of signs opens a perspective for seeing the Latin Age from its beginning with Augustine to the work of Poinsot as an indigenous development and organic unity under which all the standard themes of ontology and epistemology find a new resolution and place. A magisterial general history of philosophy, Deely's book provides both a strong background to semiotics and a theoretical unity between philosophy's history and its immediate future. With Four Ages of Understanding Deely sets a new agenda for philosophy as a discipline entering the 21st century. (shrink)

v. 1. The history of philosophy and science from ancient times to the present day -- v. 2. The origin of the mental capacities and dispositions of man and their normal, abnormal and supernormal manifestations.

Theravada Buddhism. A Social History from Ancient Times to Modern Colombo. Richard F. Gombrich. Routledge, London 1988. x, 237 pp. Hbk £20.00, pbk £7.95.

In The Ancients and Shakespeare on Time Piotr Nowak depicts a world where tradition – devoid of gravity, “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” – attempts to curb the young and new, while youth resists with all its power, vitality and characteristic insolence. The wars of generations, which Nowak explores in the works of Plato, Aristophanes and Shakespeare, pertain to the essence and meaning of time. They make up the dramatic tensions in the transgenerational dialogue between the old (...) and the young. (shrink)

Introduction:Can nature be controlled?. Autonomous nature -- Greco-Roman concepts of nature -- Christianity and nature -- Nature personified : Renaissance ideas of nature -- Controlling nature. Vexing nature : Francis Bacon and the origins of experimentation -- Natural law : Spinoza on natura naturans and natura naturata -- Laws of nature :Lleibniz and Newton -- Epilogue : rambunctious nature in the twenty-first century.